Jose Eduardo dos Santos

Jose Eduardo dos Santos (28 August 1942-) was President of Angola from 10 September 1979 to 26 September 2017, succeeding Agostinho Neto and preceding Joao Lourenco. He was President of the MPLA at the same time, leading it during the Angolan Civil War.

Biography
Jose Eduardo dos Santso was born in Luanda, Angola in 1942, and he joined the Angolan resistance movement, the MPLA, in 1961. That year, he was forced into exile to the Congo, and in 1963 went to Moscow, where he attended university. He then returned to join the MPLA government-in-exile, and he became Minister of Foreign Affairs upon independence in 1975. In 1979, Dos Santos succeeded Agostinho Neto as President. Originally a dogmatic Marxist, Dos Santos became more progressive during the 1980s as he recognized that the country's economic problems could not be overcome unless the Civil War was ended. In 2002, the civil war was brought to a final end with the death of UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi. Dos Santos retired in 2017, having been the second-longest-serving president in Africa after Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, who had taken power just two months before Dos Santos.